Earlier this spring, reader Scarfie attended the exhibition, “Stephen Jones Hats at the Royal Pavilion”. The first part of her review of the exhibition, which we all enjoyed yesterday, concludes today. Welcome, Scarfie!  

Next up was the Banqueting Room Gallery which contained rather fewer hats spread out across the various pieces of furniture.  I absolutely LOVED the red top hat with fur tail which was in the “Murder by Millinery” section! There was also an interesting hat made of felt puzzle pieces.  Further along the room were some hats that looked liked diamante spiders webs – a very interesting way to make a hat giving such a light delicate effect.

After this room you pass into the most amazing room in the whole pavilion – The Saloon.  I was blown away by this room from its fantastic Axminster made Peacock carpet to the silk wall linings it truly was fabulous!  I don’t think there were any hats in this room as the room is too splendid in itself. Leaving the Saloon you arrive in the Music Room Gallery and here I saw a lovely black musical note fascinator, a jaunty hat was very taken with as it was so very delicate.

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The Music Room itself is a large grand room of red walls with gold pictures painted thereon.  This room showcased several Dior gowns topped off by Stephen’s creations – I understand that the dresses have been gifted to the Pavilion by Dior, if true that certainly is a lovely gift!

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Some of the busts were adorned with hat creations as well, although one is of Stephen Jones himself, I assume solely for the exhibition.  His hat is a gold dragon-esque design and then we have the King with a series of Chinese style hats in graduating sizes really quite novel to see.

In the Kings Apartments on the ground Floor there was a selection of “crowns” some being made from teddy bears and a rather spectacular silvery metal crown over the centre of the bed head (see this at 1:30 in the first video at the bottom). Following, was a series of hats that were made to look like dresses that I loved. These were so imaginative and pretty and like nothing I had ever seen before.  It truly is amazing what you can into a hat.

Upstairs, the Yellow Bow Rooms contained a massive gold hat suspended over one bed – the same one as on the floor beside Mr. Jones in the photo below. Unfortunately I was flagging somewhat by this time so did not pay too much attention to what the hat was made of!  Needless to say it was certainly impressive by virtue of its size. In another of the Yellow Bow Rooms, there was a large feather hat sitting on the bed and you can see Stephen wearing it in the second video below.

In the final area/room of the Pavilion, the South Galleries (landing area) had the most futuristic hats of all – like helmets but they reminded me of the Cadbury’s Smash aliens!

I’m afraid I was not overly keen on how the hats were displayed in some rooms, as the Pavilion itself is a very ornate and “busy” place so it was at times at bit hard to distinguish what was pavilion and what was exhibit!  This was particularly the case in the Banqueting Room.  However, after preparing this review of the exhibition, I wanted to go again to absorb more of it.  Over 150 hats is a lot to take in in one visit and I wish I had taken some notes.  It was very much worth the visit as the Pavilion is stunning and these hats just added to the amazing experience.  I was just a little sad that there were no postcards of the actual hats on show to buy, just some design drawings that were not actually Stephen Jones’ and some books.  It would have been good if the Pavilion had been able to produce some sort of small catalogue showing a photo and details of each hat and dress on display for say £5 as I am sure it would have been be a sell out!

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These videos give a very good overview of the exhibition. In the second video, Stephen Jones discusses the exhibition (he talks to his hats!) and adds interesting tidbits about his career.